In 2015, HWMO’s Technical Advisory Committee, comprised of more than 35 fire and natural resource experts from across the state, discussed Hawaii’s lack of consolidated landscape-level information on vegetative fire fuels treatments.

To start to fill the gap, HWMO conducted a Rapid Mapping Assessment and facilitated Collaborative Action Planning on Vegetation Management in 2018-19 to:

Better understand all of the important hazard reduction already happening by diverse land managers;

Identify and prioritize actions that address the island-wide fire issue to optimize expenditures and efforts and maximize protection at the landscape-scale;

To kick-start collaboration, information sharing, and integrate fire-thinking into current activities to address the cross-boundary fire risk.

We thank State Division of Forestry and Wildlife, University of Hawaiʻi CTAHR Cooperative Extension, and Pacific Fire Exchange for their collaborative support on this project. Funding was provided by Hawaiʻi State Grant-in-Aid Program, 2016, and the U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region, under the terms of Grant No. 16-11052012-146 and No. 17-DG-11052012-143. USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

We also thank the many mapping participants, workshop attendees, and survey respondents who made this all possible!The preliminary results of the Rapid Mapping Assessment and Collaborative Action Planning can be found below.

HWMO is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Waimea on Hawaii Island that serves as a hub of wildfire prevention, mitigation, and planning activities in the Hawaii-Pacific region through proactive, collaborative, and forward-thinking projects.